Theodore Sturgeon Quotes

Morals - all correct moral laws - derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define the "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival".

If you are following the dharma no matter what you do it is moral.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Even if they don't know it, everyone has the instinct to survive.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural.

The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.

Surviving is not something you need to learn. You don't need to learn survival skills; you have them already. That's why we're here, all of us, because it's a game of survival anyway.

There can be no compromise on moral principles.

moral, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.

Right and wrong as moral principles do not change. They are applicable and reliable determinants whether the situations with which we deal are simple or complicated. There is always a right and wrong to every question which requires our solution.

I have never lived on principles. When I have had to act, I never first asked myself on what principles I was going to act, but I went at it and did what I thought fit. I have often reproached myself for my want of principle.

Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.

We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.

Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.

He that has not religion to govern his morality, is not a dram better than my mastiff-dog; so long as you stroke him, and please him, and do not pinch him, he will play with you as finely as may be, he is a very good moral mastiff; but if you hurt him, he will fly in your face, and tear out your throat.

The so-called new morality is too often the old immorality condoned.

Moral standards cannot be changed by battle and cannot be changed by ballot.

That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code.

I don't have principles. I have nerves.

There is no true and abiding morality that is not founded in religion.

My moral standing is lying down.

Have you no morals, man?' 'Can't afford them,Governor.

Don't swallow your moral code in tablet form.